Tag Archives: Ranting

Soshul Netwerks я Fun

I think yesterday will go down as “ridiculous comment flame war of 2011” day.

My wife posted a very innocuous status about lacking motivation to leave the house. Although the reason why she lacked this motivation wasn’t stated, it was because it was cold outside. Leaving this crucial piece of information out was, apparently, the fatal flaw that lead to the further assassination of people’s character and sensibility when commenting online.

See: “history of the internet”. People seem to feel that it’s “OK” to say whatever the hell they want in whatever manner they wish when posting on the internet. Now that we have things like FaceBook and Twitter, where, we can let people into the most intimate details of our lives, we also give them ability to supply their opinions about said details whether we like it or not.

Some people are perfectly fine about this. There IS, in fact, a way to convey your opinion about something that is respectful and kind to your audience or intended recipient. There is also the complete and utter opposite of that, where it’s not necessarily the content of your posting that is wrong, more so, how you decide to release that nugget of information into the world. THIS kind of transference of information will leave your audience feeling no-so-great about you.

These kinds of interactions cause unkind words between groups of people that would NEVER normally interact. To boot, a conversation of this kind would almost NEVER occur if this were, say, a giant party where all of these same people were physically in the same room. I can say will 100% certainty that if we were all in the same room (physically) and my wife said in passing “Man, I really am finding it hard to leave the house today, even with new Yoga pants”, that the complete absurdity that occurred on her FaceBook wall yesterday would NOT happen. The inflated sense of self that people have online rarely manifests itself in the real world in the same person. It’s really easy to be a complete and utter douche nozzle when you are typing words on a screen and clicking a button. The act of delivering this information verbally would have a whole other set of checks and balances that would [hopefully] prevent this level of douchery in a real world conversation. Something to the affect of “hmm, maybe I shouldn’t say that” might run through your head and make you think twice about the impact of your words.

What is even worse, is when people meet in the “real world” after these kinds of interactions on a social network and nay a word is uttered regarding said interaction. It’s awkward and uncomfortable. It’s like running into a girl you had a one-night-stand with, left before she got up, and never called at a coffee shop. There seems to be this sort of unspoken agreement that “what happens on <SOCIAL NETWORK> stays on <SOCIAL NETWORK>”. It’s sort of understood that when we meet, we won’t talk about what you said, how you said it, what it conveys about YOU as a person, and how it makes me want to ban you from my life. No, we will just go on as normal, smile, say hello, and exchange formalities.

Absurd. And here I thought that we were mostly adults.

Fret not, my 4 readers. I have a solution for you! It’s called the “FaceBook Restricted List”. What is this, you ask? Well, it’s a list that FaceBook has now included with your other lists, but anyone that you put on it will ONLY be able to see what you PUBLICALLY post. I like to call this a “soft de-friend” because you aren’t actually de-friending the person, just well, making sure they don’t provide the garbage that’s in their head unless you publically post something for them to see. Here’s how to soft-defriend:

  1. Go to your lists. Find the “restricted list”. Add the offender.
  2. Go to your wall. Find their posts. Click the arrow in the top right corner. Hide their inane ramblings.

Remember that social networks will provide the experience that you tailor them to provide.

Why not just defriend the person, you ask? Well that’s a great question, voice in my head! Sometimes it would cause more social upset to defriend the offender. Soft defriending gives you the ability to shut them up on FaceBook without actually having to have that awkward face-to-face “why did you defriend me” talk. Perhaps you work with this person or see them at a place that you attend as a member and you’d like to keep things civil. Soft defriending lets you do this. They no longer get to see your posts, hence, can no longer comment on them and you get to not have conversations with your significant other every night about “what so-and-so posted on my status”. Win2.

Happy soshul netwerking, friends!

No Magic <Anything>

… only, I DO eat healthy and work out! Sigh. I really should have known better.

About a month ago, a good friend of mine who is a distributor of AdvoCare products talked me into doing their 24 day challenge. He made a really good case for it and I have absolutely no doubt that his intentions were 100% honest and genuine. I honestly do think that he did think that these products would help me to shed some weight. I just want to get that out of the way, so there’s no confusion there. I don’t feel as though I was swindled or duped in any way.

I am not going to rehash my feelings about my weight/physical appearance as I have done so many times on here. I am sure you don’t want to read more whining. (If you do, for some strange reason, see Exhibit A)

I really tried to not put any hope in the fact that this set of supplements would work for me, but sadly, there was a small part of me that did. I had heard so many stories about people that had used them and had fantastic results. One of the coaches at our gym is a distributor and posts pictures sometimes of people’s results, so naturally, I thought “why not me”? Yeah. Not me. Never me.

I did it for 24 days and there was VERY little difference in weight, body fat percentage, physical appearance, or how my clothes fit.

From what I hear, usually, people start to see some changes during the initial 10 day “cleanse” (read: “bullshit”) phase. I saw nothing. Concerned, I called my friend who sold me these products and he connected me with whomever is above him in the pyramid. The person I spoke to is a sports nutritionist and was very nice. We talked for a bit, and to be perfectly honest, he told me to “get more protein” and pretty much to zone. I attribute my whopping 2lb weight loss to the fact that I started eating more protein and trying to zone my meals more. He also told me to drink A LOT of water, which I did.

It should be noted that the only part of the challenge where I wasn’t really in compliance was when my parents were here (2 days, but not really bad cheating). It was the last 2 days of the challenge and when I looked at my weight and how my clothes felt on day 21/22, before I ate ANYTHING that I wasn’t supposed to eat, there was little/no difference.

Spark made me REALLY jittery at first. I thought it was b/c of the caffeine, but it was explained that it was because of the high number of B vitamins. Ok, whatever, it still made me jittery. By the end of the 24 days, I guess I was used to it.

I felt little to no difference in my workouts doing the Spark + Catalyst combo right before. In fact, for some workouts, I felt downright horrible. Maybe that’s the lack of sleep from having an infant, but since I’ve been off of them, I haven’t felt that bad again.

The MNS phase was weird as well. I don’t know what was going on, but whatever was in these pills made me feel hyper and made me sweat a TON. It was ridiculous.

I guess, really the only thing that I enjoyed about these products was the breakfast shakes simply due to their convenience. It’s a pain in the ass to cook/prepare breakfast every morning and they did taste pretty good.

Overall, I can’t say that I am satisfied with these products or the claims that they make nor would I recommend them to anyone based on my experience. They have quite a bit of ingredients that I would consider to be questionable (like Splenda a.k.a Sucralose). There are also ingredients that are derived from soy and diary, which, if you are trying to be a Paleo purist (some are, some aren’t), are questionable.

While, I am sure that they work wonders for some people, I sure as hell was not one of them.

Thank God for money back guarantees, eh?

FGB and More Strength

Dave said that I should do FGB on Friday. I didn’t want to, but he said to, so I did it. I got to the box at 4pm and did it alone. Just me and the Tabata timer. I have to say that I am somewhat happy that I was alone b/c it was pretty pitiful. Yeah, yeah, I know that just the fact that I went and did it is great and all that, but boy did it kick my ass and leave me feeling just… worse than 17 minutes prior.

I started counting my reps on the first round. When it became apparent that no PRs were gonna happen (unless you count a PR for WORST), I kinda just said “fuck it, it’s gonna be horrible anyway”, stopped counting and tried to keep it together for the rest of the 15 minutes.

Bad attitude. I know.

I do know that I got at least 10 reps every minute, so my score was AT LEAST 150. I also know that I got around 20 push presses every time and about 15 cals on the C2 each time, so perhaps I’m closer to 200. At any rate, when all was said and done, I was feeling pretty down and in the dumps about how far I am from where I used to be. I laid around for about 10-15 minutes on the foam roller inflicting pain on various parts of myself, then, when I could see straight again, got in the car and went home.

<BitchFest>

I was pretty sad and discouraged for the rest of the night. It was another one of those “nothing is really working and why the fuck am I putting all this effort in etc” waa waa waaa, you get the idea. So, it’s been a pretty much “eat whatever I want” kind of weekend b/c what the point, right? I was talking with Mike T. a few days ago and he told me that all of the people he talks to that have a hard time dropping weight have issues with sleep. Ding ding ding. My sleep is pretty much crap.

I can’t shake the feeling that I am doing all of this for nothing. Taking a step forward and 3 back. So much effort for so little return. Is there something wrong with me? How is it possible that I put in all of this work, am pretty fucking careful about what I eat most of the time and make so little progress?!? ARGH!

It’d be WAY easier to just sit around and do nothing. Honestly.

</BitchFest>

I guess though, I do have to be a bit positive and say thank you to all of the people that don’t let me fall into the little well of self pity that I commonly default to. Mostly V, but also, my friends (who I should really call family) for constantly encouraging me to just keep going despite all of this and that one day, things will be better. For also reminding me to just have fun and let go of all of this shit that I stress about. Maybe one day I will be able to do that. I will keep trying, but I hope you all will keep helping me b/c clearly, if you were not encouraging me, I’d be doing a lot more TV/Computer/video game watching, and a lot less moving around.

So, sincerely, thank you. You are the best.

Moving on.

Saturday morning, we went to open gym. V did the workout and started in on the third strength WOD of the week. This time around it was:

  • 3×5 back squat: 300# – all good… felt pretty strong. Thanks to Fio and Chanse for spotting.
  • 3×5 bench press: 205# – felt heavy bit still doable.
  • 1×5 dead lift: 365# – again, felt heavy but still doable. I had to take a little bit more pause in between each rep to make sure that I was all set up and keeping really good form.

White Flag

I sort of give up.

It’s been 4 weeks of doing Starting Strength + Intervals while paying really close attention to what I am eating.

I don’t really see much difference. The scale says that I am down about 2-3 pounds depending on the day/time, but my BF % is still between 18 and 19.

I have been able to steadily increase the weights on my lifts, so I guess I have made progress there.

If you are one of my 3 readers or know me, you know that I, historically have a very hard time dropping weight. I can’t even being to describe the amount of jealousy I feel when someone new starts at the gym, goes paleo, works out, and is shredded in a month. It seriously makes me want to put my fist through a wall. I have been at this for YEARS and I can’t even make a freakin’ dent.

After just years and years and years of struggling with this; after reading all of the information I can get my hands on from blogs, books, articles, etc, you’d think I knew it all. Apparently, I know nothing or at least not enough to make anything really substantial happen.

If you asked me, I’d say the 2 biggest contributing factors to my lack of weight loss probably are my high levels of stress (which I am trying my hardest to manage) and the difficult sleep pattern that having a small child yields. I wouldn’t be surprised if my cortisol levels were very high.

Anyway… I say that I “sort of” give up. I am at the point where I pretty much want to say “screw it all”, not work out AT ALL and eat whatever the hell I want. But, I won’t. What I mean by that is, I am done trying to figure out what to do. Whatever I have thought of to do isn’t working for me. Dave has some ideas for me which seemed to work during the last challenge that we did, so I will put my blind trust in that and do whatever he tells me to do for however long I have to do it.

I will continue to work out because it relieves stress and is a source of enjoyment for me. I think at this point though, I am putting my expectations of results into a nice little box and locking it away.

I have explained this before, but it’s not worth going into one more time. My motivation isn’t vanity. I don’t care about having the best body, being the strongest, or the fastest. All I want… all I have ever wanted is to be able to go places in the summer that require no shirts and not feel absolutely horrible about it. I haven’t been in a pool in a really long time and I am pretty sure that I actively avoid situations where people will see my body. Who in the hell doesn’t love being in a pool?! Well, it seems, in adult life, your price to get in the pool is either 1) a body that you are mentally proud of, no matter how it looks or 2) a body that looks pretty good even if you don’t think it’s awesome. I have neither of those things going for me. There is no way in HELL that I am going to any function with my CrossFit friends that requires skimpy clothing. I love them all, but I am too self conscious to be there. Sad? Yes. Reality? Yup.

Really, all I am looking for is a body that I am not totally self conscious about. Will I ever get that? No idea, but for now, I don’t have the energy to care.

I wish that we didn’t live in a society that put so much stress on physical appearance, and I my logical brain, I am pretty sure that my friends who are really my friends don’t care and wouldn’t say anything to me to make me feel bad about it, but personally, I just can’t do it.

Maybe some day, some thing will work and I will be able to enjoy being outside or in the gym not completely covered up all of the time.

I am not holding my breath, though.

Snatches and HSPU

Well, it’s Thursday and I have only gotten one workout in this week so far. I was busy Monday, I got one in on Tuesday, and yesterday (Wednesday), I felt like I was going to fall asleep around 4:30pm.

Tuesday, 4/19/2011

7x

  • 12 snatches @ 95#
  • 6 hand stand push ups

Time: 23:08. This didn’t look so awful written on the board, but man, 7 rounds of this was nasty. 5 was a struggle. I have no idea how I gutted out 2 more rounds.  I quit several times during the WOD only to get right back to it to keep plugging along. I know that we always say that CrossFit makes you a better person. This is exactly why. It’s an allegory for life. When things get hard, do you quit? Even if you do “quit”, do you come back to it anyway? This is why I want my kids to do this. It will make them mentally strong.

I went the whole time without scaling, which I am proud of. I will say though, that if this were competition, none of my HSPU would have counted. I still need depth and ROM there.

If this were competition… those word make me think of something I saw recently. Web Smith (of SICFIT fame) recently posted a link to an article where a CrossFitter was quoting Blair Morrison. You can read the article for yourself, but boiled down, here are the main take home points:

  1. This dude is already burnt out on the CrossFit Open.
  2. It seems like some competitors are too.

In the quote from Blair Morrison, he says “Well… I am officially “Opened” out.”. He goes on to talk about why, but I have to say, somewhat reluctantly, that I agree with him.

I really don’t want to come off like I am complaining here. There is a really bright side to all of this in that I have been forced to work on some skills over the past weeks that I would likely otherwise brush off or leave for “another time” like heavy cleans, 24″ box jumps, etc.

It seemed like a great idea and something that would be lots of fun at first, but for me, it has been anything but. It’s been a pain in the ass to find times to get to the gym to do these workouts since they are not part of the regularly scheduled programming. It’s been stressful to think about how I am going to get my normal programming FOR HEALTH in so that I am not sore for and able to even attempt these WODs. I sort of miss the days when I could go to the gym, feel competitive if I wanted to, and really just have fun.

A few weeks ago, the term “Leader boarding” came out… where you check the leaderboard constantly to see where people are ranked. I can’t say that I suffer from this. In fact, I barely remember to submit my scores. If I am over this whole thing already, I can’t imagine what someone who has to check the scores every 5 minutes must feel like.

It’s almost over and then we can go back to our regularly scheduled programming. The worst part of all of this is that I actually feel bad for wishing that this were over with already so I could go back to “just working out” and having fun.

By the way, I realize that the second half of this post completely contradicts the first part. Mostly, I am feeling just burnt out on it and ranting…

Just wait…

By now, you know that we are parents to be. We have a little over 4 months to go until the newest Goldstein is born. We get some really good advice, tips, and tricks from lots of people. Obviously, people have had kids before and offer up their words of wisdom and most of the time it’s all good stuff and very much welcomed.

Sometimes, though, the advice is a little ridiculous and sometimes downright negative. Now, I completely understand that lots of people probably don’t even realize they do this but, after hearing some of these things SO many times, it sort of becomes grating. So, because this is my blog and one of the only places that I can vent about stuff like this, here are some things that we hear VERY often that get under my skin:

  1. The phrase “oh just wait until…”. Yes… we know kids do a lot of stupid things and will try our patience and time. We know that they will do this, that, and the other thing. I can’t say that I am fully ready or will know how to deal with every situation as with any new parent, but, really, I don’t need the reminders. My wife doesn’t either. “Oh just wait until you’re in your 3rd trimester and…” … yup. We have read the books. We have talked to other pregnant ladies. It’s not pleasant. We know. If you had said this to me or her at some point, I have smiled and nodded… we hear it A LOT. Of course, *positive* statements that start in “oh just wait…” are more than welcomed.
  2. You being flabbergasted that we are not finding out the sex of the child. While I completely understand that today, everyone finds out what they are having, we don’t want to know. That doesn’t make us bad people or parents. I realize this is hard to understand for some people, but we really want that surprise when the kid pops out and makes his/her grand entrance. While I respect and understand your decision TO find out what you are having so that you can paint your nursery or buy clothing, please respect mine and don’t talk down to me about it. I don’t need your attitude. 
  3. You acting like we are committing heresy by wanting to have a natural childbirth in a birthing center. Hmm… let’s see. Humans have been around and reproducing for how long? If you are talking about humanoid type things, 2.2 MILLION years. If I want to be generous and just talk about homo-sapiens (us), that’d be about 200,000 years. How on EARTH did those women back then even give birth without doctors, epidurals, drugs, un-natural positions, and a gigantic medical industry pushing interventions on them?! How?! Please, someone tell me how. Now, you are going to tell me that I am being “crazy” or “irresponsible” for having my child in a MEDICAL FACILITY where my wife is free to move about and deliver in a position that is best suited for her. Perhaps you are the crazy one for just going along with what everyone tells you is “best”. If you’d like to have a discussion about the merits, benefits/detriments to birthing here, there, or over there, that’s perfectly OK, but again, please, don’t talk to my like I am out of my damn mind OR go the sarcastic route with phrases such as “well, good luck with that”, or “yeah, we will see how THAT goes”, or “you will be screaming for an epidural”. Granted, this is a completely new frontier for us. It’s our first baby. I know that you think since you have had a few, that you can be a bit high and mighty. Maybe you tried to have a “natural” childbirth in a hospital and didn’t turn out all that well for you. Stories of that sort are certainly welcomed. The more information we have, the better. But this “well, I did that and it was the worst ever and I will never do it again and I would get the epidural a week before delivering and you are nuts”, well, it really just makes me not want to talk to you.

I am trying really hard to not sound like a jerk here. I don’t want to turn anyone off from giving us advice or helping us though the experiences that they have had with all of this. I am POSITIVE that as we go along we will have TONS of questions and will want to hear how different people have done things.

I guess in a nutshell, what I am trying to say here is “if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all”.

If you know something that you think we will greatly benefit from, please, by all means, let if fly. But, if all you want to do is criticize, tear down, and tell me just how much worse it can get/will be, please, don’t say anything at all.

Offices

Going on business trips always makes me remember all of the things that I absolutely DON’T miss about working in an office:

Public bathrooms i.e. no privacy.

I hate when you have to time your bathroom visits based on complicated statistical studies of “bathroom peak usage time”. It sucks. I’m happy my hotel room is literally a 2 minute drive from this place.

Wearing uncomfortable clothing.

Business casual clothing sucks when you are skinny and the clothes look good on you. When you’re a fat bastard like me, business casual just looks bad. Couple that with the fact that I haven’t really upgraded my business wardrobe in while, well, it’s just not pretty. Don’t get me wrong… I am not a slob or “not presentable”. I just feel like I exude “I shouldn’t be wearing these clothes”.

Awkward elevator talk.

There’s nothing fucking worse than getting into an elevator with people who feel like they need to talk to each other. Why are people so uncomfortable with silence? See, if you KNOW someone that gets onto the elevator, feel free to engage in shitty small talk without involving everyone else. But, for God’s sake, why do you need to make a comment then look around the elevator to see who else cares. NO ONE CARES. SHUT UP.

Not being able to make faces when people (managers) request absolutely ridiculous things.

I will be the first to admit that if you ask something completely absurd of me, I will make a face. Sorry, can’t help it. Managers seem to do this a lot. I guess it’s because they, most of the time, don’t really understand how shit works, so, they ask completely absurd shit of people. When I have to go to an office, I have to exercise quite a bit of restraint to not make faces at people.

Cubicles.

Cubicles just suck. The mere site of a bunch of cubicles in an office gives me chills and makes me want to puke. I don’t know how I worked in that kind of environment for so long. I don’t know how other people do it either. To be surrounded by little grey walls all day is just fucking depressing.

Not being able to see outside.

There’s something about being able to see outside that makes you feel better. When I work at home, I can look out my windows to see what’s going on. Even if I never actually step food outside, it makes me feel good just to know that “outside” is right there.

People that don’t know how to end conversations.

People that don’t know how to end conversations make things so uncomfortable. If you need me to do something, walk over to where I’m sitting and ask me if I can do it. If I can do it I will. If I can’t I will tell you why. When the conversation is done, you can just say “Thanks! Bye!” and walk away. You don’t need to do that weird talking to yourself mumbling thing then slowly back away from me. What the hell is wrong with you?

People who repeat things ad-nauseam.

Yes. You told me. Yes. I got it. I got it the first time. Yes. Yes. I got it the second, third, and fourth times you told me in order to re-word whatever it is you are saying. I got it. I got it. Please don’t make me stand around at your desk any longer when you have told me what needs to happen five times five different ways when I have a ton of work to do. I. got. it.

Not having access to a kitchen which leads to me not being able to eat whenever I want to.

Yes, I work at home. Yes, I am spoiled. I can eat whatever I want whenever I want. If i need to make food because there’s nothing available, I can. If I need to run and pick something up, I can. Why? BECAUSE I’M AT MY HOUSE. Having to be at an office all day is just … soul sucking.

Thank goodness this isn’t normal.

Grocery Shopping

In my last post, I talked about going to the Sassy Pea market on Crystal Falls Pkway. While we were there, I started talking to V about the sense of satisfaction that I get from buying my food from people who actually know where it comes from.

I talked about this with my friend Ryon once and he said “I die a little inside every time I go to Costco”. I can’t think of a better way to say that.

Believe me, Costco has it’s uses, but I don’t really buy that many food items there anymore. Their meat isn’t grass fed and the majority of their produce is not organic. Lately, though, I am starting to see a few more organic products popping up here and there. Still though, there’s no way I can get everything I want/need as far as food goes there.

The next step we took was to start going to Whole Foods. Whole Foods claims that it’s chickens are free range and that it’s “grazing animals” are grass fed. Do I believe them? Well maybe. I don’t know. I can’t see them, nor can I talk to the person that raised the cows/pigs/chickens/etc. Also, their produce is too damn expensive and is shipped around the world from god knows where. In fact, I cracked a joke this weekend at the register asking when they would be accepting “first born child” as a method of payment as I “can’t afford this shit”. I will go adopt a kid and give it to Whole Foods if I have to.

Yes, I was joking. Luckily I can afford to pay for this crap. Hell, you can either pay for it now or later right? I guess I might as well pay now and hopefully not get a bunch of diseases later on.

Whole Foods does a great job of “selling organic”. Yes, I know that tons and tons of fossil fuel was burned to get this cauliflower to the store, but AT LEAST it wasn’t grown with nasty chemicals and <whatever>iscides. I always feel like I am doing something better for myself than buying the beef that walked around in it’s own shit and never saw a blade of grass from Costco/HEB/Walmat/<supermarket>.

I guess where I am headed with all of this is that I want local and I want organic. Yes. I am one of the hippies that I used to always bitch about. The corporate machine, man, the corporate machine is killing the people of this country with the terrible food that they MANUFACTURE to make money. And yes, people are WAY to stupid to know what is going on. Not many people want to know where their food actually comes from and what’s in it.

Getting back to the Sassy Pea market…

I loved shopping here because the woman that I interacted with knows the rancher that she gets the beef from. She knows about the cows, what they ate, why they ate it, and all sorts of great things like that. Do you know what YOU’RE steak ate before you ate it? I’ll bet you don’t. Maybe you THINK you do, but you probably don’t.

Starting on March 27th, Cedar Park will get it’s own Farmer’s Market and I could not be more ecstatic. There is no better food buying experience than being able to ask the person selling you the food how it was produced, what’s in it, and what practices are used. Try THAT at HEB while you buy your <manufactured chemical piece of shit> along with your <two free pieces of shit> that come along with it. Now THAT’S loco.